Brighton-based actor Tony Maudsley chats to Brian Butler about his starring role in Benidorm, the smash hit TV comedy series, about playing Hagrid’s 16-foot high brother, and his penchant for rude T-shirts and hot pants.
TONY Maudsley, whose 21 year acting career spans everything from period drama to panto and hit stage musicals, admits he was a bad boy at school in Liverpool. “A drama teacher fished me out and took me to his youth theatre and then I went to do a college course and then gave it all up.”
After travelling and working in an MFI warehouse, he decided at 23 to give acting a go and went to drama college in Wales. After graduating, he was in a tour of South Pacific which didn’t sell and was closed, but Tony had been spotted and was called to audition for the part of wrongly convicted supposed child killer, Stefan Kisko, in the TV film A Life For A Life.
“I hadn’t done much television but it was to play opposite the award-winning Olympia Dukakis, and I got it.”
It created a huge boost in his career, catapulting him into the spotlight and winning him the Royal Television Society Best Newcomer Award.
“Tim Burton had seen it and asked me to audition for Sleepy Hollow so it boosted me up my career ladder.”
He originally auditioned for a different part in the hit TV series Benidorm but didn’t get it. “Then three years later I auditioned for Kenneth, the hairdresser. The other guys were all small and thin. I was 20 stone and sweating heavily and was flustered because I’d rushed across London from a play I was rehearsing. I guess they saw what they were looking for.”
And so began eight years in the series which finished last year.
“The character was written but then they see what you can bring to it,” he says. Two of the things he’s brought are rude T-shirts and his famous hot pants. “I drew up a list of slogans for the T-shirts and the lawyers decided if they were too mucky for ITV at 9pm.”
I asked him why it had been so successful, still playing to six million viewers when it was axed?
“We did more episodes than Only Fools & Horses and I think it’s because it’s about working class people having a great time on holiday. Many people recognise their dad or mum or grandma in the characters.”
Such was the enthusiasm of its fans that they went on holiday to be at the location during filming.
“We had to promise them they’d be in the background shots to keep them quiet.
“All the characters have back stories and they all have big hearts. It’s shown in the winter on TV because it brings sunshine into people’s lives.”
And now he’s reprising his role as the camp coiffeur in Benidorm Live on tour and on stage.
How different is it to be in a touring version of the show?
“Live audiences are great. When each of us has our first entrance, the audience roars. They’ve invested in the characters over the years and they want to show it.”
Tony admits audiences up north have been more raucous. Down south they seem to listen more. It will be interesting to see what the Brighton audience is like.
“There will be my friends who I drink with at the weekend and who’ve never seen me on stage.”
Creator, Derren Litten, has hinted the show might come back but Tony thinks that might depend on the outcome of Brexit as to whether they could work on location for several months at a time. And there’s also talk of a film.
Tony’s versatility is such that, after filming the classic Vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon, the director of the Harry Potter films asked him to play the voice of Hagrid’s 16-foot high brother, Grawp.
“It was the best paid job I ever had and it still pays from repeat fees,” he jokes. “It was a fascinating thing to do because I was acting against a green screen but with real actors. They put you in a kind of X-ray machine and capture all your facial movement which they project on to the final CGI character.”
How does he deal with a touring schedule?
“I’m not 100% happy with it. It’s six days of performing and on the seventh day you travel to the next venue. The audiences are great but you don’t get home for the nine months of the tour.” So playing in Brighton will be a bonus especially since Tony lives two minutes from the Theatre Royal.
Having done films, TV, panto and straight drama, what’s left?
“I’d love to play Lenny in Of Mice And Men – but I need to do it in the next five years.”
Asked what advice he would give to the young aspiring Tony, he doesn’t hesitate: “Give it five years – I did say that to myself. Work hard and hope for the best. For me, it paid off.”
It certainly did.
What next?
“A Stephen Poliakoff drama set in the Cold War. Maybe after that I’ll be ready for the sunshine and the hot pants again.”
MORE INFO
• Benidorm Live is at the Theatre Royal, Brighton from February 25 to March 2.
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